Uber's 'Hell' Program Tracked and Targeted Lyft Drivers (engadget.com)

In its quest to ensure Lyft remains in second place, Uber reportedly ran a program that exploited a vulnerability in its rival's system. From a report: According to The Information, the ride-hailing company's covert software-based program called "Hell" spied on its staunchest competitor's drivers from 2014 to early 2016. It's called Hell, because it served as the counterpart to "God View" or "Heaven," Uber's in-company app that tracked its own drivers and passengers. Unlike God View, which was widely available to corporate employees, only top executives along with select data scientists and personnel knew about Hell. The program apparently started when Uber decided to create fake Lyft rider accounts and fooled its rival's system into thinking they were in various locations around the city. Those fake riders were positioned in a grid to give Uber the entire view of a city and all of Lyft's drivers within it. As a result, the company can see info on up to eight of its competitor's nearest drivers per fake rider.

Comments

Is anyone surprised by this?

[toonces33]

Not me..

Re:Is anyone surprised by this?

[Penguinisto]

Is anyone going to be surprised by the massive lawsuit that Lyft is about to launch? Not me either.

It does lead me to wonder, though, if Uber is actually charged with a crime (because Lord knows if some random kid did it, the FBI would be kicking his basement door in right about now...)

Re:Is anyone surprised by this?

[redmid17]

What exactly is Lyft going to sue them for? Breach of rider contract/TOS? How is that going to be massive?

https://www.lyft.com/terms

Now there is some stuff in there that Uber definitely/probably violated (eg 9a, 9l). I'm not really seeing how they are directly affecting Lyft's bottom line. They see how the cars and drivers react, most likely comparing that to their own driver behavior, but that's something that I'd expect Uber to be researching anyway. Google most certainly is figuring out how people use Bing and other search engines or how people use Apple maps vs Google maps.

is this why they never turned a profit?

[known_coward_69]

Instead of working only on expanding their footprint it seems they spent most of their money on ridiculous research and paying off drivers?

Fascinating names...

[__aaclcg7560]

You can tell a lot about a company startup culture from the way they name things. Google's system for pushing software to the workstations is called "Pussy Galore". Facebook has a conference room called "WTF BBQ".

Talk To The Drivers

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

When I started using these rides, I talked to the drivers about how they liked their job. All of them that had driven for both preferred working for Lyft. Universally, they said that it was easier to make more money working for Lyft. As a consequence, I only use Lyft now. From the passengers point of view there is little difference in cost.

Re:Talk To The Drivers

[LVSlushdat]

Yup... The only time I've done a rideshare was last October when my flight was late landing and I didn't want to wake the wife up. I spent a few moments deciding on which one to install and chose Lyft, as even back then Uber was pulling weird shit.. I installed the app and created an account and had a ride home in less than 10 minutes with this really nice (and cute) recent Russian immigrant in her Nissan Altima. Got home, the app detected that we were at my destination, the app showed me the fare and would I like to leave a tip.. I left the lady a nice $5 tip for a $14 fare. Later I checked what a taxi would have cost me for the same trip... (shudder) close to $50 WITHout a tip... Yeah.. Lyft is OK with me.. FUCK Uber and their endless bullshit...